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January 18, 2012

Letter Sounds.

I have started testing the water a little to see if Red is ready/interested in learning letter sounds. I should say up front that I am not a teacher and have no training in teaching, so everything I know comes from other great blogs. I got a lot of great ideas from Carisa at 1+1+1=1.
I introduced a new sensory bin filled with rainbow rice. Red loves sensory bins, so this was a hit. I filled it with items—miniatures and pictures—that start with the same letter sound. The first week it was filled with “b” words.
Each week I’ll switch out the items with a new letter theme. It’s a great way for Red to learn any vocabulary he doesn’t know and to familiarize himself with the letter sound. I let him lead. He enjoys digging for the objects, and I’ll often name them when he finds them, i.e. “That’s a bear. The word ‘bear’ starts with the sounds ‘buh.’”
We’ve also started playing a game where he hits the picture of the object with a hammer. I say, “Can you find a picture of a word that starts with ‘buh?’” For this week, and possibly several week to come, every picture has the ‘b’ sound, so he is right no matter what. We clap and cheer when he hits the picture, and I replace it with a new one (I only give him 3 at a time).
And for a little extra review, we have been playing another game where he jumps or stomps on the picture. I say the same thing as above, and he stomps the picture with the correct sound. Again, so far all the words have the correct beginning sound.
We do each game a different day, and then the next week I switch out the pictures. I’m hoping to show him how to recognize that beginning letter sound. As he starts to catch on, we may start playing ‘I Spy’ as well. He’s not ready for that yet, though.
So far he has had fun with each of these games, and we will skip them if he doesn’t want to play. As he starts to catch on, I’ll mix in one or two other letter sounds so he really has to think to find the correct one.